The present invention relates to a method for creating printed images on foil-covered surfaces. The method is particularly useful in the manufacture of high-quality printed matter such as sports figure cards or makeup and perfume packaging. However, it also is applicable to other printed matter, such as playing cards, greeting cards, tags, signs and badges.
A novel method of printing an image on a foil-covered surface wherein a portion of the surface is coated with opaque white ink provides a unique high-quality graphic wherein the figures printed on bare foil are more prominently presented in comparison to figures printed on the surfaces covered with opaque white ink.
It is well known in the printing industry that images printed on foil-covered surfaces are prominently presented to the eye This result, known as "foil effect" is even more apparent when juxtaposed with an image printed on a non-foil covered surface.
Methods for producing foil effect are known. One standard industry practice involves spot lamination of foil to selected areas of paper sheets. Through a separate process and by a different machine, the portion of the desired image to be presented with a foil effect is then printed on the foil as the remaining portion of the image is also printed on the non-foil portion of the card.
In this process, as the foil base portion of the surface is created in a process separate from that which prints the image on the foil and non-foil portions of the surface, problems develop in keeping the respective images from printing on the wrong surfaces. The result of this process commonly is an undesirable soft edge between the images. This problem is exacerbated when complex designs are printed. As this procedure requires two separate machines and processes, it also is time consuming and expensive.
Another practice in the industry to create a "foil effect", particularly on baseball or other popular figure cards, comprises printing a 4-color image on plastic sheets, opposite the side from which the printed image will be viewed. Opaque white ink then is printed over areas where foil is not to be revealed. After the inks are dry, foil is laminated to the printed side of the plastic. Paper of suitable weight, which may be printed on the side which will be the back of the completed card, is laminated to the foil which previously had been laminated to the printed plastic. This procedure is complex, time consuming, and inefficient.
Still another method of producing a "foil effect" comprises coating white paper with foil over all of one surface. The parts of the paper where it is desired to block the foil effect are printed in opaque white ink on a letterpress printing press, familiar to those in the printing arts. When the opaque white ink dries, the sheets are printed via offset printing methods, also familiar to those skilled in the printing arts, in different colors, over both the exposed foil and opaque white inked surfaces.
In this process, the opaque white ink is printed on letterpress equipment, and the colors are added on different, offset equipment. The different colored inks are printed on the same offset equipment, but may be printed at different times. Problems develop in making the opaque white ink and colored ink images line up, or "register" with one another Further, letterpress printing is slower than offset printing and this process is very slow.
Thus, it has not been known in view of the prior art to utilize offset printing methods to create sharp, high quality, complex, multi-color, foil-effect designs contrasted with non-foil designs or non-foil backgrounds on the same foil-covered surfaces at relatively high speed and low cost.